Elastic headbands are flexible and useful for keeping hair in place and off your face. They can be made to suit your head shape and size, alleviating the painful pinched feeling that is common with other headbands, which can be a common problem with hard headbands. Elastic headbands are also an attractive headband option for people who can’t wear typical headbands due to sensitive nerves behind their ears.
Depending on what you want to make, you can easily make your own elastic headbands with colorful grosgrain ribbon, elastic, and a needle and thread in only a few minutes. It’s so simple in fact, you can make multiple ones in various colors so you have one for every outfit!
Here’s how you can make your own:
- Measure around your head where you will be wearing the headband or use the ribbon you want instead of a measuring tape.
- If you used a measuring tape, cut a length of ribbon that is 4 inches shorter than the measurement taken in Step 1. Cut a 2-inch length of elastic. If you used your ribbon, then just cut 4 inches shorter than the length needed to go around your head.
- Apply a small line of Fray Check to the raw edges of the ribbon to prevent fraying, and eventual destruction of your pretty elastic headbands. Allow enough time for the Fray Check to dry.
- Hand stitch one end of the elastic to the end of the ribbon, overlapping the edges by 1/2 inch.
- Holding the unstitched end with your fingers (pinching the ribbon and elastic), check the fit of the headband around your head to make sure it will be snug enough that it doesn’t slip, but loose enough that it won’t leave a mark on your forehead when you take it off. Trim the ribbon and elastic if necessary to make the headband fit perfectly.
- Stitch the remaining side and check again to make sure that the headband fits comfortably.
There are also a number of great websites out there that show you how to make other cute elastic headbands, some a little more advanced than the basic one I showed you. I have included Google links on this page to help navigate you to some of them. Feel free to try one or more links.
